Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (31 page)

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz had changed electric sparks into waves in 1887, and in 1899 Marconi sent a wireless message across the Channel via wireless transmission. Both men, Hertz particularly, were aware that radio waves could be reflected from solid objects. Just as sound waves are used by bats and dolphins for ranging, might not radio waves be utilized for some similar military purpose? In 1934 this question was posed by Harry Wimperis, director of scientific research at the British Air Ministry. He actually had a sort of “death ray” in mind that would melt or disintegrated incoming aircraft.

Robert Watson-Watt of the National Physical Laboratory was a bit more pragmatic. Even if such a death ray could be constructed (and he doubted it), a threat would still need to be detected far enough away to use the thing. Could the detection mechanism be the solution to their problem? After all, destroying threats was exactly what fighter pilots were there for. Thus a system known as Radio Detection And Ranging (RADAR) was born—and it changed everything.

Calling it “radio direction finding” (RDF) as a cover, Watson-Watt proved his concept on a winter’s morning in February 1935. Aligning his equipment to a railway line, he borrowed an RAF bomber and had it fly along the tracks 20 miles away. It was detected two out of three times, and Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding was satisfied enough to immediately provide funding.

A year later Watson-Watt was finding aircraft more than 60 miles away, and more stations had been built. This increased the total detection area and permitted not only range estimates but rough bearing calculations. By August 1937 a radar training school had been established and the Chain Home system, as it was called, was participating in Fighter Command exercises. With detection ranges over 100 miles now, Dowding could see the Belgian and French airfields that would inevitably be used by the Luftwaffe. Eventually there would be twenty such stations stretching from the Shetland Islands north of Scotland all the way south to Cornwall.

It certainly wasn’t perfect. For one thing, the radar masts could be seen from France, and the Germans were well aware of their existence. It was also relatively primitive from a technical standpoint. Imagine radar as a flashlight shining about in the darkness. If it hits something that reflects light, then you have a target. Same thing with radio waves, except they’ll bounce off anything metal and aren’t affected by atmospheric conditions such as rain, fog, or darkness. So Dowding pointed these “spotlights” out over the English Channel and effectively blanketed the French coast. The huge antennas could either transmit and receive, but since they were stationary, no angle of arrival from an incoming signal could be measured. Without this, triangulation was an issue, so bearing and range estimates were problematic. Also, since the antennas couldn’t really be directed or aimed, the coverage could be underflown by very low-flying aircraft.

Some of this was solved by the Chain Home Low (CHL) system. The Admiralty’s research laboratory had been simultaneously developing a coastal defense radar of its own. Designed to aim guns, this radar had to be fairly accurate and utilized rotating instead of fixed antennas, with smaller wavelengths. These systems could measure the angle of arrival thus allowing higher-quality targeting data and the detection of low-altitude aircraft. CHL radars were like flashlights aimed into the low shadows under the massive stadium lights of Chain Home stations. Again, the biggest asset to the English was the Channel—there was no interference from ground clutter and no place for an attacker to hide.

Watson-Watt continuously improved the system and envisioned some of the critical advances required to make the most of it. These included alternating wavelengths in response to jamming and discriminating between friendly or hostile aircraft. He solved the latter problem by installing equipment that reflected incoming radar pulses with a coded “blip” to alert controllers. A derivative of this Interrogation, Friendly or Foe (IFF) system is used today on all military aircraft and remains the primary identification tool in the initial stages of air combat. Also, Dowding was well aware that fighters needed radios so that pilots could talk directly to controllers. Sounds simple nowadays, yet in the late 1930s this was a real technical challenge. But, he reasoned, what was the sense in having good targeting information with no way to act on it? Dowding was keenly aware of the tremendous advantage this technology provided, so he devised a unique system to exploit the information. It worked like this.

Responsibility for England was divided among three main fighter groups: 10 Group, west and southwest of London; 12 Group, which covered the Midlands north to Scotland; and 11 Group, which got London and the southeast coast closest to France. Far to the north was 13th Group, which was kept more or less as a ready reserve, training, and recovery area. Each group was further subdivided into sectors, like lanes on a highway. A sector would have its own CH stations and controllers responsible for the fighters in each area.

So when a gaggle of contacts was detected getting airborne from France, the various Chain Home radars would report the “plots” to their own sector’s Central Operations Room. This would then be passed via telephone up to Group Operations and then to Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory. The nerve center for Fighter Command operations was the Filter Room, where all sector plots would be correlated with the radar displays from headquarters. Also, anything from the Observer Corps, noise detection stations, and civilian reports would all be analyzed and interpreted. Range determination, called “cutting,” was accomplished here using lines of bearing from multiple stations. Enemy altitude was estimated and intercept bearings plotted. Each detected formation was given a wooden counter, black for friendlies and red for the Germans. Counters also showed the approximate number of aircraft, their altitude, and their direction.

A board called “the Tote” ran along one wall. Every squadron in a group was labeled, and colored lights indicated each unit’s status, such as Airborne, Detailed to Raid, Enemy Sighted, and various forms of readiness based on rearming and refueling. The filtered plots were then passed back down to all the lower-echelon Operations Centers, which had matching maps, synchronized clocks, and identical tote displays. Group Operations would then decide which squadrons to commit from each sector based on the size of the raid and the friendly fighters available. Group Ops would also activate air-raid sirens and pass confirmed hostile targets to anti-aircraft batteries.

In effect, hundreds of men and women formed an interactive computer that provided a composite air threat picture, which could then be dealt with in the most lethal manner. Centralized information gave the best “big picture” possible. This, combined with Dowding’s policy of decentralized execution and noninterference, ensured that the group commander, the man who knew his own situation, made tactical decisions.

This command style contrasted starkly to that utilized by the Luftwaffes
.
Goering spent much of the battle at his Carinhall estate, north of Berlin, routinely summoning his commanders away from the action for briefings and meetings.
^*
Drawing on their experiences in Spain, Poland, and France, the Germans had organized their assets into three air fleets (
Luftflotten
). This was fine for tactical operations but didn’t lend itself to a bigger, strategic type of front.

This battlefield mentality also showed in their own radar development. Called Dezimator-Telegraphie (DeTe), it was primarily the brainchild of Dr. Rudolph Kuhnold from the Navy Signals Research Department. A sonar expert, he’d realized that detection and ranging was possible over land or water using radio waves. The Freya and Seetakt early warning radars were adapted for use on ships. This led the German firm Telefunken to develop a compact, mobile system known as Wurzburg, which could locate aircraft about 30 miles away. Wurzburg was fairly sophisticated compared to the British systems: it rotated 360 degrees and mechanically scanned in azimuth.

Their own technical lead was one reason the Germans didn’t think the British had such a system. Another reason was the two zeppelin missions that overflew the mysterious masts in the summer of 1939. The British were clever and the Chain Home operators said nothing about the airships, so the Germans heard nothing suspicious. Also, an English mobile system was recovered from the rubble of Dunkirk and the Germans were unimpressed with its primitive technology. Last, and probably most significant, the Luftwaffe of 1940 was an offensive force and had no need of a defensive network, so they didn’t think in those terms . . . yet.

OBERST JOHANNES FINK
was not a happy man. The colonel commanded KG 2 and was a battle-tested Stuka pilot. However, he’d just been made
Kanalkampfführer
—the Channel battle leader. Ironically,
Kanal
means either “channel” or “sewer drain,” depending on the context, and Fink, along with many others, sardonically chose the latter meaning.

At this time, the operational air fleets, or
Luftflotten
, were roughly equivalent to an army corps and organized by geographical area. Luftflotte 2, for example, controlled all aviation-related issues within its territory of northern France, Holland and Belgium. Each air fleet’s area was further subdivided and given to a
Fliegerkorps
depending on the type of aircraft (for example, II Fliegerkorps was composed of long-range bombers). Fighters belonged to Fighter Command and were parceled out as needed in the form of
Jagdfliegerführer
(
Jafu
) units—sort of a fighter corps within each air fleet. A
Korps
was then organized tactically into
Geschwader
(wings), each of which was usually composed of three
Gruppen
(groups). A group contained three to four
Staffeln
(squadrons) of nine to sixteen aircraft.

Launched on July 10, Kanalkampf was supposed to be the opening salvo for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Its main goal was to target convoys and ports along England’s east coast, forcing the RAF to respond. The Germans believed if the RAF Fighter Command could be forced into combat, then it would surely be destroyed and air superiority achieved. To accomplish this, eight hundred Bf 109Es formed eight
Jagdgeschwader
, along with Me 110 Destroyers, Stukas, and bombers. From Norway to Spain, the Luftwaffe was poised to strike.

Once air superiority had been obtained, then Sealion could proceed. Actually, the interdiction of shipping would have been valid if there had been cooperation between the Luftwaffe and the U-boats prowling around Britain. There were about five hundred merchant ships using four main convoy routes at any one time. As it was, a dozen or so U-boats were sinking 300,000 to 500,000 tons of shipping each month—far beyond the capacity of British yards to replace.

Long-range Focke-Wulf 200s based in Brest or Bordeaux-Mérignac could reach Iceland, well beyond RAF fighter range. The British had never planned on defending their shipping lanes from the Luftwaffe because no one had foreseen a French collapse and rebasing of German aircraft along the Channel coast. It was a perfect strategic opportunity for Hitler to truly choke the life out of England. Merchant vessels that weren’t destroyed could be damaged or at least located for the submarines to finish off. However, no such coordination existed between the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine.

Trying to destroy airfields and ports was equally pointless. Most RAF fighter units used roughly prepared grass strips, and it was easy enough to fill craters or simply move to another location. Ports were just as difficult. Unless the entry can be blocked, the only other alternative is mining, and the Germans tried this. But the Royal Navy had hundreds of minesweepers and cleared mines as fast as they were dropped.

Looking back, the Channel Battle was an unfocused and costly affair. It was largely put into action because the German High Command simply didn’t know what else to do while they waited and hoped for Churchill to capitulate. There is a tremendous advantage in keeping an enemy off balance and reactive, so if the Germans had immediately pressed across the Channel it’s very likely that a foothold in southern England could’ve been secured. A limited assault with paratroopers might then have been able to seize key chokepoints and isolate the Norfolk and Surrey coasts. Though this would’ve taken several trips due to the shortage of Ju 52 transports, it was only a twenty-minute flight across the water. Done at night, with the reeling RAF at its least effective, airborne troops might have held out long enough for the infantry and a few tanks to arrive.

There would be no question of a large-scale, complex attack, or of conquering the entire island. But the shock of
Fallschirmjäger
combined with a small, hard-hitting ground force may have worked. There were no tanks in Britain—they’d all been left behind in France. Most of the million or so soldiers in England didn’t have rifles, and if the southeast Chain Home stations had been captured then the RAF would be blinded. But this would all have to be done before the British could catch their breath and strengthen their defenses.

Which is precisely what happened.

During the spring of 1940, Spitfires and Hurricanes were being assembled at the catatonic rate of just two each per day. Controlled by the Air Ministry, aircraft production was in the same dire straits as pilot training, logistics, and maintenance. The ministry was a dysfunctional collection of politicos and career military officers long past their prime who were more concerned with turf battles than with saving England.

Churchill simply bypassed the whole mess by creating a new Ministry for Aircraft Production (MAP) and putting Max Aiken, Lord Beaverbrook, in charge. A Canadian by birth, Aiken was a brilliant businessman and newspaper mogul. Exactly as had happened with Harold Harmsworth during the Great War (see Chapter 4), someone who understood production was desperately needed to sort out the situation if Britain was to survive. Extremely competent and apolitical, Beaverbrook was indifferent to bureaucratic subtleties, personal feelings, and bruised egos. He had a job to do and he did it. Since the Air Ministry was of no use, he simply went around it altogether. Locks on hangar doors were replaced with his own, and the MAP took over all Air Ministry repair facilities and depots. He ignored labor regulations and shredded mountains of useless red tape. Using his own expertise, Beaverbrook streamlined production methods, cleaned up factories and distribution systems, and fired anyone who got in his way.